There are many personal injury attorneys in the New York City area that only do trial-level work. When their clients’ cases need to be appealed, they always bring in other attorneys.
At Jaroslawicz & Jaros, we do our own appellate practice. This means we stay by our clients’ sides, even in cases when it becomes necessary to formulate an appeal to a higher court. We aren’t afraid of appealing decisions we think were wrongly decided if it is in our clients’ best interest to do so. In fact, we have even taken cases all the way up to the United States Supreme Court!
In New York, when a personal injury case is brought on behalf of an injured person, who is called the “Plaintiff”, it is generally brought in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, which is considered New York’s lower trial court.
Many times, something can happen in the lower court that affects your case and requires that an Appeal be brought to a higher court. In New York, that would be one of the four (4) Appellate Divisions.
For example, recently at Jaroslawicz & Jaros, we represented a woman who suffered injuries to her fingers when a window in her apartment fell on her fingers. We sued her landlord on her behalf, claiming that the window that fell had been defective and dangerous and that it was due to the landlord’s negligence that it fell and caused her injury.
Prior to the trial, the attorney representing the landlord, who is called the “Defendant,” asked the Judge hearing the case to dismiss it before trial. According to the defendant’s argument, since they did nothing wrong, there was no reason for a trial ever to take place. Despite our client’s testimony and the opinion of an expert that we hired to show that the window was dangerous and defective and only fell due to the landlord’s negligence, the Judge agreed with the defendant’s position and dismissed the case.
As our firm handles its own Appeals, by writing our briefs and arguing our Appeals, we promptly filed an Appeal to the Appellate Division and then wrote the brief and presented oral argument to the five (5) Judges sitting on the Appellate Division. The Appellate Division unanimously agreed with our position and sent the case back for trial. This case was then settled for a sum that provided fair compensation and made our client happy.
In another recent case, a building directory fell and injured someone in a building lobby. Again, the attorney representing the Defendant, the landlord being sued for negligence in causing this accident, asked the Judge hearing the case to dismiss it before trial. Again, the Judge agreed and dismissed the case. Again, we appealed and were successful in having this decision reversed, and this case was also then settled for a sum that provided fair compensation.
The attorneys at Jaroslawicz & Jaros have been successfully writing and arguing Appeals for over forty-five (45) years and have been involved in literally hundreds of cases on Appeals at all levels-including the New York Court of Appeals, our State’s highest court, and even to the United States Supreme Court, the highest court of the United States.
We have not only been involved in having the existing law properly interpreted to the benefit of our clients but have also been involved in cases that have actually been instrumental in changing and interpreting many aspects of the law in New York. Jaroslawicz & Jaros has helped change and interpret the law involving injured construction workers who were hurt on the job and who received the special protection of New York’s Labor law, various motor vehicle claims, product liability, medical malpractice, life and disability insurance, and even laws affecting the recovery for real property losses.
Since a lawyer can never predict what will happen in any given case and whether an Appeal will be required it is important that when you interview an attorney you are considering hiring for your accident case to seek to recover compensation for a personal injury that you ask questions such as: Does your firm handle its own Appeals? What cases on Appeal have you handled? Will you agree to handle my Appeal if that becomes necessary?
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